Your Guide to May’s Family Friendly Video Games
Switch 2 might be months off, but Nintendo's still releasing interesting games, with summer right around the corner.
Is summer almost here? Based on what I often see outside of my window in the Chicago suburbs, the answer is no, but I’m being told that May is right before June?
We’re entering a fascinating point with the Switch, where Nintendo is still releasing games—two of them this month, actually, both promising—and most, if not all, indie games continue to target the handheld. The Steam Deck has largely taken over the Switch’s role in my life, though I still drag the Switch out when Nintendo releases something. I’ve long wanted to see what all the fuss was about with Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door, which some people consider their favorite game ever, so even though we’re in a period where Nintendo’s doing lower profile releases, I’m excited.
The question becomes, then: can I finish Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth before this out?
Apple Arcade still hasn’t announced what it’s launching in May, and they usually have a few different games. If there’s a game missing from this list, please let me know!
Update: We now have the Apple Arcade games, which include Rabbids: Legends of the Multiverse (June 6, PvP card game), Return to Monkey Island+ (June 6, adventure game), Tomb of the Mask+ (June 6, action + puzzle game), Fabulous - Wedding Disaster (June 6, fashion management game).
If you represent these games and have a potentially interesting story to share about how these games consider kids as part of their audience, do get in touch with me!
Endless Ocean Luminous (Switch) - May 2
Description: Dive in and survey a mysterious underwater world in Endless Ocean Luminous for Nintendo Switch. Discover aquatic life, buried treasure and more as you explore the ocean at your own pace, solo or in online expeditions of up to 30 players.
Rating: E
Price: $49.99
I’ll admit it’s a little disappointing such a visually rich game is coming at the end of the Switch’s life. The multiplayer stuff sounds neat, but I’m unfamiliar with the series.
Surmount (PC, Mac, Switch) — May 2
Description: Surmount is a free-flowing, physics-based platforming adventure where you’ll experience the joys of mountain climbing. Make your perilous ascent through the various handcrafted and procedurally generated challenges of Mount Om, all the while following a silly story with eccentric folks along the way. Master your own unique style of climbing either alone or with a friend, upgrade and customize your climber to stand a better chance, and maybe just maybe, you'll be the first ever to reach the top!
Rating: E
Price: $14.99
This looks like a really fun and really disastrous co-op game. Jusant, the climbing game from the developers of Life Is Strange, was one of my favorites last year. Interested!
Animal Well (PS5, Switch, PC) - May 9
Description: Explore a dense, interconnected labyrinth, and unravel its many secrets. Collect items to manipulate your environment in surprising and meaningful ways. Encounter beautiful and unsettling creatures, as you attempt to survive what lurks in the dark. There is more than what you see.
Rating: TBA
Price: $24.99
This is probably too obtuse for the younger ones; it seems pitched towards adults who want to venture down a rabbit hole. It does have a lot of scary-looking animals, too.
Gift (PC, Switch, PS5, Xbox Series X/S) - May 9
Description: An old man wakes up and finds himself on a luxury cruise ship. He encounters passengers that he feels nostalgic about for various reasons as he attempts to escape from the sinking ship. This is an action game in which the player aims to escape from a giant ship before it sinks into the sea.
Rating: E
Price: $24.99
Have not heard a single thing about this one, but the trailer looks interesting enough.
Little Kitty, Big City (PC, Switch, Xbox One/X/S) - May 9
Description: Will you make your way home or will you explore what the big city has to offer first? I mean, getting home is obviously your main priority. Obviously. Well, it's one of your priorities. Maybe more of a guideline... It's definitely on your To-Do list somewhere! But first? Exploration!
Rating: E
Price: $24.99
I’m excited to have my kid check this one out. Apparently it’s very short, too! A much safer place for me to appreciate a cat, given the fact that I’m allergic in real-life. A preview from TechRaptor was positive, calling it “ cozy, playful, curious, and charming.”
The Rogue Prince of Persia (PC) - May 14
Description: Jump into this action roguelite installment in the Prince of Persia series as you flow between death-defying platforming and acrobatic combat as the Prince himself. Battle through the capital city again and again with one goal – find a way to save Persia from a Hun invasion wielding dark magic.
Rating: N/A
Price: TBA
I don’t know how many kids will be playing this, but there’s a good chance my kids will be watching me playing it, so it really makes sense for this game to appear here.
Braid Anniversary Edition (Netflix, PC, PS4/5) - May 15
Description: Solve puzzles by changing the flow of time in this remaster of the classic, award-winning game Braid. This remaster has new puzzles, hand-repainted graphics and fully reimagined sound, and a completely unreasonable amount of developer commentary.
Rating: E
Price: $19.99
This was supposed to arrive last month, then got bumped by a tiny delay. (Xbox version is a day later than, which is weird and I’m not sure what to make of it.)
Bread & Fred (Switch) – May 23
Description: Grab your best bud for help in this new co-op challenge to help two adorable penguins, Bread and Fred, reach the top of the snowy summit. Time your jumps, cling to walls and swing across gaps to see how far you can make it before you tumble all the way back down the mountain.
Rating: E
Price: $14.99
This looks delightful. It’s unclear how much I could carry my kid through it, but The Escapist called the PC version as “brutally difficult yet delightful co-op platforming.”
Duck Detective: The Secret Salami (PC, Switch) - May 23
Description: Aggretsuko meets Return of the Obra Dinn in Duck Detective, a cozy mystery game about a down-on-his-luck duck searching for answers in a sinister sausage-based conspiracy. Inspect and interview suspects to learn their hidden secrets, then use the information you’ve gathered (plus your own de-duck-tive reasoning) to locate the suspect and bust the case wide open!
Rating: E
Price: $9.99
Haven’t seen much about this one, but the premise is promising and the art is cute.
World of Goo 2 (Switch) - May 23
Description: Use living liquid creatures to build bridges, grow towers, terraform terrain, and fuel flying machines. The world is beautiful, dangerous, and evolving. Every level is a realistic physics and fluid simulation. Build, splash, explode, destroy, fly, and roll your way through your own unique solutions to each level.
Rating: E10+
Price: TBA
World of Goo was one of the original games on the Wii, which means we’re talking about a game from 2008! Oh no, I’m actually turning 40 next year, aren’t I? Shacknews played World of Goo 2, and said “the studio had taken advantage of today’s technological advances without losing any of the scrappiness of the original puzzler.”
Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door (Switch) - May 23
Description: The nefarious X-Nauts are after the treasure behind the Thousand-Year Door! With a map from Princess Peach, and the help of a few locals, Mario journeys through a colorful world made of paper to find them first. To prevail in this quest, you’ll have to level up Mario and his friends, master timing-based attacks and badges to impress the audience on the stage of combat, and make use of all the abilities that come with being cursed—er, conveniently made of paper—like folding into a plane to cross big gaps or turning sideways to slip through narrow openings.
Rating: E
Price: $59.99
Like I said at the top, this is one of those “I haven’t played it before, and I still feel bad about it.” Nintendo let me see footage from an early version of the game a few weeks back, and yep, it looks like a terrific RPG. We’re not talking about a short game, either, with How Long to Beat suggesting most people are going to be playing somewhere between 30 and 40 hours of it. It might be a tough sell for younger kids, though, as Nintendo did not indicate to me that it has much in the way of nuanced difficulty settings. They’re probably better off sticking with Super Mario RPG for now.
MultiVersus (PC, PS4/5, Xbox One/X/S) - May 28
Description: MultiVersus is a free-to-play platform fighter that brings the depth of iconic WB stars to life across the nearly endless possibilities of play.
Rating: TBA
Price: TBA
This game came out in June 2023, then disappeared. Roughly a year later, the Smash Bros.-inspired fighter is back, though we’re still waiting for details on the full roster.
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Your take on the enduring charm of the Switch amidst the arrival of Steam Deck in your life resonates with me—I'm also juggling between the two. Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door has a special place in my game library, excited to see how it translates with the latest Switch technology. Thanks for keeping us in the loop with your thorough reviews and updates!
I wouldn’t mind seeing each game’s FGDB Skill Level in these roundups, since I usually find myself doing a lookup over there anyways!